HOUSTON — For the doubters, the story behind the Rockets’ unbeaten start is about who Houston hasn’t beaten, rather than the teams they have.
There is some logic to that, of course. The Rockets are 6-0, but the Lakers, Jazz, Sixers and Celtics are a combined 3-16 entering Friday. And the Spurs, whom the Rockets romped past in Thursday’s nationally-televised showdown, were missing Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili. Of the six wins, only the rested Heat in Miami, where the Rockets

HOUSTON — After being unexpectedly jilted by Chris Bosh, the Rockets found themselves in a precarious spot this summer. They are now hoping that Jason Terry, who just turned 37, can be a small part of the solution.
General manager Daryl Morey has said since January that Houston needs to acquire the “third-best player on a championship team” to align with established stars James Harden and Dwight Howard, implying he did not believe that player would be found internally on the current

When the FIBA World Cup’s group stage ended Thursday, eight of the 24 teams went home.
Four more went home Saturday, the first day of the knockout stage.
One of them was Mexico, which put up little resistance in a loss to Team USA. Chris Sheridan is in Barcelona and was not overly impressed. As the games get tougher, the rotation needs to get shorter.
Here’s a roundup of Saturday’s round of 16 games.
BARCELONA GAMES
Team USA 86, Mexico 63
In a rare mornng EST

In years past, Americans have considered the Olympics to be the only relevant international basketball competition.
Stateside, the other quadrennial tournament formerly known as the FIBA World Championship went largely unnoticed until Team USA embarrassed themselves in 2002, losing three times in Indianapolis and finishing sixth after never having lost with NBA players.
The rest of the world sees things differently. Other basketball federations have been viewing the World Championship as the more important international competition. Also, because the very best Americans play

The summer is winding down, and things are about to get interesting for Team USA as they depart for Spain and push forward toward a much-anticipated matchup with the host nation in the gold medal game.
Unless, of course, the United States and Spain do not make it all the way to the final.
Hey, a Spain-USA gold medal game is NOT a certainty. Strange things can happen along the way. Ask Paul George, who is out for a year with a

Not much happening.
Which leads us to a Sportswriting Etiquette 101 lesson: It is bad form for basketball writers who are covering a tight game to say: “Looks like it’ll go to overtime.” Same thing with baseball writers, who are forbidden in press boxes from mentioning the words “extra innings” prior to the start of the 10th. It s considered a jinx.
OK, not forbidden. But it is frowned upon, heavily. Sportwriters like to go home to their families, especially those families with

Dwight Howard, James Harden and Chandler Parsons are the big-name players, but the Houston Rockets would not be a top-four team in the Western Conference without Patrick Beverley.
Houston is 36-16 when Patrick Beverley starts, but they will miss him for at least two weeks (and likely for the duration of the regular season) with a torn meniscus. His replacement is one Jeremy Lin.
You remember him, right?
Even if Beverley doesn’t have the best offensive and defensive numbers, it doesn’t seem likely that Lin has

Times flies. And things change. The Houston Rockets are Exhibit A.
One year ago, the Houston Rockets headed into training camp seemingly empty-handed after a summer spent chasing Dwight Howard via a trade with Orlando.
Gone were Luis Scola, Goran Dragic, Kyle Lowry, Samuel Dalembert, Courtney Lee and countless others, and in were the unproven Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik. It was a seemingly disappointing offseason, but just before the season was set to start, GM Daryl Morey changed all of that,